From shy student to IS polemicist, Hoda Muthana in US crosshairs

After her abrupt transformation into a fiery supporter of Islamic State extremists, she is under the scanner of the top levels of the US government. The 24-year-old, who has since been married to three different jihadist men and has a toddler son, says she regrets her turn to radicalism and wants to return home — but President Donald Trump has personally intervened to block her. Growing up in Hoover, Alabama, a prosperous suburb of Birmingham with a sizable Muslim community, Muthana was raised by strict Yemeni immigrant parents who forbade her from owning a smartphone — ubiquitous among US teenagers — until she finished high school.